Documents office work 68 results

The purpose of the study was to investigate the physical and psychological prerequisites of functioning, as well as the social environment at work and personal factors, in relation to work ability and general subjective well-being in a group of office workers.The prerequisites of physical functioning are important in maintaining work ability, particularly among aging workers, and psychological prerequisites of functioning are of even greater importance in maintaining general subjective well-being.

Objectives This study investigated the facial skin complaints of office workers before and after the static electric fields of a visual display unit were reduced.Methods On the basis of a screening survey of 4556 office workers in 11 companies, 120 of 227 subjects reporting facial skin complaints were randomly selected to this double blind intervention study. Antistatic measures were used to reduce the static electric fields of the visual display unit in the intervention group but not in the control group, which worked with a visual display unit resembling that of the intervention group. Electric fields, dust concentration, health complaints, and psychological behavior tests were recorded before and after the intervention.Results The intervention group reported statistically significantly fewer facial skin complaints than the control group. In the intervention group, among those with an office dust concentration of >58 g/m3, a median reduction of 1.5 skin index points (scale 0-8) was achieved, whereas there was no change in the control group. In the regression model "group category" was still a significant variable after control for background factors. In addition, further linear regression analyses indicated that several static electric field parameters were predictors of the skin complaint reduction.Conclusions This field trial indicates that removing static electric fields from visual display units can probably help reduce the facial skin complaints of workers in offices with high dust concentrations.

"Obesity in the workplace is associated with loss of productivity, high medical care expenses, and increased rates of work-related injuries and illness. Thus, effective, low-cost interventions are needed to accommodate the size of today's obese office worker while alleviating potential physical harm associated with musculoskeletal disorders. Utilizing a sample of 22 overweight and obese office workers, this pilot study assessed the impact of introducing an alternative, more ergonomically-sound keyboard on perceptions about design, acceptability, and usability; self-reported body discomfort; and typing productivity. Data were collected using self-reported questionnaires and objective typing tests administered before and after the intervention. The intervention duration was six weeks. After switching from their standard work keyboard to an alternative keyboard, all participants reported significant decreases in lower back discomfort (t = 2.14, P = 0.044); although obese participants reported significant decreases in both upper (t = 2.46, P = 0.032) and lower (t = 2.39, P = 0.036) back discomfort. No significant changes were observed in overall typing performance scores from baseline to follow-up. Findings suggest that such interventions may be introduced into the workforce with positive gains for workers without reducing short-term worker productivity."

"La tertiarisation de l'économie et le développement de modes d'organisation recherchant la transversalité des échanges s'accompagnent d'une redéfinition des espaces de travail. L'aménagement des bureaux en open space s'est imposé ces deux dernières décennies comme une norme d'organisation spatiale du travail. Dans cet article, nous rendons compte des modes d'investissement et de réalisation de l'activité au sein de plateformes téléphoniques ouvertes accueillant des téléconseillers regroupés sur des bureaux partagés. Il s'agit de dépasser l'approche dominante dans les sciences sociales, privilégiant le travail sur l'espace, aux fins de développer une analyse du travail (de service) dans et avec l'espace. Dans cette perspective, nous montrerons que la constitution de significations et de marges d'autonomie ne relève pas seulement du réinvestissement d'un espace fonctionnel, mais aussi d'une action de superposition d'espaces de natures différentes: pratique, symbolique et sociale."

"This study uses a longitudinal within-subjects design to investigate the effects of inadequate Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) on work performance and wellbeing in a sample of 114 office workers over a period of 8 months. Participants completed a total of 2261 online surveys measuring perceived thermal comfort, lighting comfort and noise annoyance, measures of work performance, and individual state factors underlying performance and wellbeing. Characterising inadequate aspects of IEQ as environmental stressors, these stress factors can significantly reduce self-reported work performance and objectively measured cognitive performance by between 2.4% and 5.8% in most situations, and by up to 14.8% in rare cases. Environmental stressors act indirectly on work performance by reducing state variables, motivation, tiredness, and distractibility, which support high-functioning work performance. Exposure to environmental stress appears to erode individuals' resilience, or ability to cope with additional task demands. These results indicate that environmental stress reduces not only the cognitive capacity for work, but the rate of work (i.e. by reducing motivation). Increasing the number of individual stress factors is associated with a near linear reduction in work performance indicating that environmental stress factors are additive, not multiplicative. Environmental stressors reduce occupant wellbeing (mood, headaches, and feeling ‘off') causing indirect reductions in work performance. Improving IEQ will likely produce small but pervasive increases in productivity."

"Prior research suggests that it is through providing direct support to citizens that public servants gain a source of meaning in their work; and affirm their public service identities. This article explores how employees who work in a public service support function and receive little, if any, direct feedback from citizens may maintain their public service identity during their back office work. The study finds, against much previous empirical research, that these back office employees achieve positive identity affirmation through bureaucratic work. The findings also show that they affirm their caring and community focused public service identity by noting their superiority in this regard when compared with colleagues. However, this augmented self-narrative results in many experiencing feelings of isolation. The article discusses how these findings extend the understanding of identity affirmation among back office public servants and may improve our ability to effectively support these workers."

"This article explores a neglected aspect of IT-enabled service work: the back office. The fieldwork study reveals how back office service work has been identified as suitable for ongoing reorganization and reconfiguration as firms respond to the pressures of contemporary capitalism. The article focuses on standardization as a means of facilitating organizational restructuring into shared service centres as highly skilled back office work is reframed as routine service work. Standardization is the vehicle that drives the commodification of the labour process as tasks are fragmented, quantified and traded in the global sourcing of services, allowing work to be lifted out of traditional organizational structures and placed elsewhere, or outsourced to other service providers. The study shows how this ongoing process is fraught with contradictions, problematically rendering people and place ancillary."

"The design and comfort of the work environment may not be priority issues for many employers in these straitened times but, as Tim Oldman points out, failure to appreciate the damaging effect on productivity of mediocre workplaces can cost businesses dear.Of the subjects most likely to fuel vociferous discussion among workplace designers, strategists, managers and owners, ‘productivity' is surely the most recurrent, i.e. do the design and management of a workplace affect the productivity of those it accommodates?"

"L'aménagement ergonomique des postes informatisés est une condition essentielle, mais insuffisante pour la prévention des TMS. Nous savons maintenant qu'il est malsain de demeurer trop longtemps assis devant un ordinateur. L'organisation des tâches doit prévoir de bouger et de se lever régulièrement de son poste de travail si l'on veut prévenir les TMS.
Ce guide présente un résumé pratique de l'état des connaissances sur l'ergonomie du bureau. Les principes proposés peuvent s'appliquer à d'autres secteurs que celui du bureau."